With a creepy atmosphere and intriguing set up, Repose certainly does a lot to get you interested.
Whilst the two games really have nothing in common, the first thing that Repose reminded me of was Cryptmaster thanks to its fascinating monochrome art style and grid-based movement. Beyond those superficial similarities though, they have little in common. Cryptmaster’s humour and fantasy trappings give way to a strange sci-fi story set in a grimy cyberpunk world where everything will kill you.
In Repose you are a new agent working for a mysterious nameless company who is sent into a seemingly endless facility to collect lost oxygen tanks from the bodies of what appear to be astronauts. Why are they there? What are the monsters in the facility? And what happened to your predecessor Aaron, who now speaks to you in your dreams? There’s an interesting tale to unravel here, and whilst a lot is presented to you by the occasional character you’ll meet, blanks can be filled in by finding notes left lying around. I won’t go deeper into the plot, but suffice to say it’s quite engaging throughout and you’ll likely find the promise of another snippet being enough to drive you forward through the difficult adventure.
Difficult is perhaps not quite the correct word to use here. You will die a lot for reasons I’ll get into momentarily, but you’ll rarely be set back much at all. You need to rest at beds you find around the facility, which save your game and act as a checkpoint when you die. These are plentiful and reasonably well spaced out as your goal is really just to reach the next bed in the next area. When you set out though, you’ll have very limited energy, and should you run out, you’ll die and return to the previous bed.
My initial feeling on this was frustration, as I felt it really limited the opportunity for exploration. The more I played though, the more this made sense, as Repose takes the Dark Souls approach to shortcuts to heart. You are meant to die because you are trying to find a terminal to unlock a door to create a shortcut to aid your exploration on your next run. Death doesn’t cost you progress, as doors will remain open, allowing you to get deeper into the facility each time you set out. This does mean that each time you enter a new region you’ll likely be wandering around blind for a few lives, but before long you’ll have your bearings and a better idea of where to go. This won’t be for everyone, and the easily lost and frustrated need not apply, but there’s a lot to be said for that feeling of relief when you open a door and know your next run will be easier.
There are monsters around which almost act as puzzles rather than threats as they stay in the same place. If you stand in front of them, you’ll have a few seconds to get out of the way or raise your axe and move in for a kill before you get shot. At a certain point you’ll get a gun to attack at range or get rid of enemies that your axe can’t handle, but it uses a lot of your energy to fire so it’s not to be used lightly. You kind of need to plan your routes using knowledge of where they’ll be rather than intending to fight your way though, hence the puzzle analogy.
You do have access to a map, but it isn’t the easiest to read, especially when dealing with multi-level areas such as the early abandoned building. It’s more useful for getting a rough sense of your location rather than knowing exactly where you are. There are tea flasks you can collect and use that will restore your energy and briefly reveal where you are on the map which can help. Really though, you’ll want to rely on learning your way around and finding useful landmarks as you continually pass through some regions.
The art design is quite striking and certainly helps sell the dystopian environments well. Everything looks grimy and run down, even with the minimalist approach that’s used here, whilst the monsters look suitably grotesque. A small gripe is that the monsters, whilst they do change somewhat throughout the game, do look quite similar throughout. It’s only a minor issue really, as they are more of an obstacle than actual threat, but it came to mind whilst playing so it felt relevant. The sound is equally well done, with lots of great ambient sound for the backing to your explorations. The characters aren’t voiced, but I feel that fits the style of the game well, helping it keep that eerie feeling.
Interestingly, Repose uses an old fashioned save code system. There’s an in-game reason for this that I won’t go into, but it does raise the interesting possibility of sharing game codes between players to help them past frustrating areas which I quite like. You don’t need to memorise or write codes down if you don’t want to as the game remembers your most recent one and shows it to you when loading a game, although you can switch this option off for a more traditional feel if you want. It’s another interesting feature that fits the game’s theme, but also another that might put off some.
Whilst Repose will wind up some players, those who can look past the initial difficulty and see the game as more of a puzzle in efficiency and memory rather than a game to fight through will likely enjoy the challenge. I’d recommend giving this one a look and experiencing the weirdness for yourself.
Repose is available now on PC.
